The Real Obscenity

With the decency folks run amok, believing all the ills of the world can be solved by ridding television of naughty words in shows designed for adults, the most at-risk outlets are also the most vulnerable: Local PBS stations.

PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger said today that with the Federal Communications Commission allowed to raise fines tenfold, and local PBS stations individually on the hook, there is great risk in some programming.

An example is a 2007 Ken Burns documentary on World War II. As you can imagine, vets rightly use some salty language describing warfare. Remember the ridiculous dustup over “Saving Private Ryan” airing on ABC? These are actual vets.

You can show all the carnage you want, but have someone drop an F-bomb and that would offensive. I believe the word is Fubar.

To maker matters worse, the rules are ill-defined, and profesional whiners like the Parents Television Council are quick to wage an organized war over anything that contradicts their rigid ways. Yes, some programming should be free and clear for kids; when it comes to documentaries, the first client that must be served is truth.

“The situation with the FCC is tremendously concerning. And in fact, over the last
three weeks, I have met now with each commissioner to talk to them about our concerns because I think that there is a great deal of misunderstanding,” Kerger said. “I think
for many of the commissioners, they think that this is a very clear issue and obviously have not thought through the ramifications for — certainly for our work. I think that — as you know, there is a case pending now with our station in San Mateo (Calif.) around the
broadcast of Martin Scorsese’s “The Blues.”’

“We think that this is a tremendously important issue. It is an issue because of free speech. It is an issue because our filmmakers deserve to be able to tell their stories and tell them well. And we, as an industry, are very concerned. When you have stations
whose operating budgets in some cases are only a couple million dollars, even, frankly, the old fines, once you factor in all the legal work and so forth, were daunting. The fines now would put stations out of business, and we cannot allow that to happen.”